


know-it-all

by silverxrain



Series: the spider and the elephant [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4044688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverxrain/pseuds/silverxrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha can't figure out Banner, or is it really that hard?</p>
            </blockquote>





	know-it-all

Bruce already seems to be something of a therapist for the Avengers. Tony apparently once sat him down and talked about his problems for three hours straight until Bruce fell asleep. Not in that order.

Natasha doesn’t know what it is. His problems seem to be as big as any of theirs, seemingly the biggest, and most obvious. Clint, in fact, is the only one without issues, but no one goes to Clint for anything unless they don’t mind being snarked at. Clint is not the type to sit through three hours of anything, let alone Tony Stark talking about himself.

The other guy is obvious. He’s big, he’s messy and he’s obvious. You could hardly miss that shade of green, even when he’s not smashing anything. Bruce is the color of shame, the most immediate product of his ‘dark side’. Shame, because the Hulk is basically an animal, and the whole team jokes about it, but that’s only because that’s how they handle everything, with a great deal of insensitivity and heart.

Bruce has somehow managed to find dignity for himself in the heart of his shame, and that’s the first thing Natasha admires about him. There is nothing false about him, even when you dig, and Natasha has dug, pried, because she has to know how someone works before she can trust them to watch her back, and although Bruce is kind, he’s not exactly forthcoming. Steve and Tony are open books to her, she doesn’t even remember when she learned to read Clint and Thor doesn’t seem to have had a duplicitous or false thought in his life.

Bruce’s problem is so damn obvious. So why is he the hardest to read?

Natasha thought he would be the hardest one to crack, until she decides she’s going about it the wrong way. Maybe there is nothing.

Off the bat, Natasha knows that’s not true. When she meets him, she pries through him, and Bruce sees and assumes she, like everyone else, just wants to know the secret. Natasha almost laughs. The _secret_. As if there’s only ever just one _secret_. That’s not even the biggest one. She can tell.

She thinks and thinks about Bruce, but she can’t fathom it out. She goes round and round in circles. No, she doesn’t go anywhere at all. What is Bruce Banner?

So, maybe the only way Natasha can know him is by the normal way. Just _getting to know him_. And not like working her way into a target’s head to pump them for information. No, Natasha needs to know Bruce intimately.

She stops. Wonders why this is. It’s not as if she has a desperate need to find out how Steve Rogers or Tony Stark works. It’s not because Bruce is a challenge. Challenges are always something she can resist.

Something sparks in her brain, two synapses together.

Perhaps, she wants to know Bruce in order to better learn _herself_.


End file.
